Happy International Town Criers’ Day! Watch @chestercrier teach @ed_miliband how to do the perfect “oyez” 🗣 pic.twitter.com/Hae3jcWchv
— BBC Radio 2 (@BBCRadio2) July 9, 2018
In all the excitement yesterday we overlooked “International Town Crier’s Day”. Ed Miliband didn’t, he was dressed up in the full regalia. 10/10 for enthusiasm. Remember when he wanted to ban MPs from having outside jobs? He is bringing home the bacon to the tune of £2,500-a-week for his Radio 2 work…
MPs have voted against Ed Miliband’s Leveson 2 amendment by a majority of nine. And…
I understand Labour will not be pushing the section 40 amendment to the Data Protection Bill to a vote, meaning newspapers will not be liable for legal costs in libel actions they win. Big victory for investigative journalism.
— Kevin Schofield (@PolhomeEditor) May 9, 2018
Labour have just confirmed to Guido that the Watson amendment will not go to a vote. They didn’t have the numbers and have bottled it. Victory for the free press.
Ed Miliband, Tom Watson, Max Mosley, Impress, Hugh Grant, John Cleese, Brian Leveson, Gary Lineker, Steve Coogan, Evan Harris… your boys took one hell of a beating (well, just)…
On the Today programme this morning, Ed Miliband made the very serious allegation that journalists impersonated medical staff after the Manchester Arena terror attack. Miliband cited Bob Kerslake’s report to claim:
“We had journalists posing as medical staff… it is a minority that’s bringing down the good name of the press, that minority hasn’t changed.”
From listening to Miliband, you’d think that the Kerslake report found evidence of this happening. All the report (PDF) actually contained was three unsubstantiated claims: one from a member of the public who spoke to “someone saying they were a Bereavement Nurse”, another from a member of the public who spoke to someone “they felt sounded to be more like a journalist”, and a third who claimed “TV journalists went to her school and phoned the hospital pretending to be from the police“. The Kerslake report did not find proof that any of this happened, or that any journalist was responsible. Despite Miliband’s assertion to the contrary, no evidence was found that any journalist posed as medical staff after the Manchester Arena attack. The claims were so lacking in substance that Kerslake does not even mention them in his report’s conclusions or recommendations. They would not stand up in a court of law (let alone meet the IPSO guidelines on accuracy). Miliband is peddling fake news to smear the press ahead of the vote tonight…
Tonight the Commons votes on Tom Watson and Ed Miliband’s amendments declaring war on press freedom. The amendments are a Trump-style assault on the media, outrageously attempting to force publishers to pay both sides’ legal costs even if they win a dispute – a reform that will potentially bankrupt media companies. Watson and Miliband, backed by former fascist Max Mosley and Hacked Off’s press-hating millionaire celebrities and oligarchs, last night lost the support of the Guardian. In an excoriating statement condemning Watson and Miliband, Guardian News and Media warn the amendments “would further erode press freedom and have a severe chilling effect for the news environment in the UK”. They are particularly damning of Watson:
“The inclusion of Condition A has been widely interpreted as ensuring that news organisations structured along the lines of the Guardian and the Observer should be excluded from the scope of the broader clause. This clause was not discussed with Guardian News & Media and we disagree with attempts to impose a selective sanction on the media.”
These amendments are driven by Watson and Miliband’s personal loathing of the free press, rather than any concern for victims of intrusion. Miliband has semi-retired from his £77,000-a-year job as MP for Doncaster North – he seems to spend most of his time making podcasts and he couldn’t be bothered to turn up for the Syria debate last month. Even the Guardian is horrified by this blatant attempt by Watson and Miliband to undermine the free press in Britain. Any MP who votes for their amendments tonight is an enemy of press freedom…
When two jobs Ed Miliband isn’t coining it on tour he’s giving interviews to music magazines bashing the free press. The former Labour leader backed press freedom-hating Stop Funding Hate in a totally-not-really bitter interview with NME:
“Look at the Mail’s campaign against Stop Funding Hate, which is people saying to advertisers that they should stop advertising with the Mail and The Sun. They’re worried, because they’re worried about the power of the consumer to go elsewhere. They’re worried about non-traditional media. I think that is a good thing. But don’t underestimate these people. Never underestimate them. These are grim, grim people. They are absolutely ruthless in pursuing their agenda. They will try to monster their opponents, whoever they are. And they have no ethics. Jeremy was able to say in his conference speech, ‘They had 14 pages about me being a terrorist – they’ll have to have 28 next time.’ In a way, that called their bluff. But they do seep into the bloodstream. Their power is waning, but it hasn’t ended.”
Because Ed never courted the press.
It clearly still hurts…
2015: Labour leader Ed Miliband pledges to ban MPs from having second jobs: “We’ve got to remove any suspicion that MPs are working not for their constituents’ interests but for someone else’s interests.”
2018: Backbencher Ed Miliband announces a national live tour of his Reasons to be Cheerful podcast in various cities across the country, selling out London’s 400 seat Leicester Square Theatre later this month with tickets at £15 a pop.
What changed his mind? Ed certainly has a few thousand reasons to be cheerful…
Labour’s Rushanara Ali has written to the Foreign Secretary defending Aung San Suu Kyi amid the violence in Burma. Suu Kyi is a darling of the British left, she was given the red carpet treatment by Labour when she opened the party’s then London HQ five years ago. The longtime Burmese opposition leader, who is now the de facto ruler of the country, is the subject of growing international condemnation over the army’s brutal treatment of minority Rohingya Muslims. A petition signed by 350,000 people called for her Nobel Peace Prize to be withdrawn. Boris Johnson says the Rohingya crisis was “besmirching” the country’s reputation…
Before her fall from grace, Suu Kyi addressed dozens of Labour staff when she officially opened the party’s Brewer’s Green building in 2012. The love-in was gushing – Suu Kyi even mused on bringing Labour’s office “back to Burma”:
“In the end it is people who are most important, not buildings, although this is a beautiful building and I would not mind taking it back to Burma with me… the fact that you are here and have welcomed us so warmly and with genuine enthusiasm for the cause in which we have been engaged for so many decades, this is very special to me,”
Then leader Ed Miliband lavished praise on Suu Kyi, declaring her Labour’s “leader in this struggle”:
“I can think of no better person than the most famous leader of the opposition in the world, if I may say so – and the most distinguished, and the most courageous and the most brave – to open our offices. We have admired from afar, and we have supported your struggles over the past many years. We have seen the courage you have shown, we have seen the fortitude that you have displayed and we are absolutely with you in the fight for … the transition to a full democracy. We are with you every step of the way. You will be our leader in this struggle.”
Suu Kyi also addressed a meeting of the Shadow Cabinet. Given Jez’s open-door policy for dodgy visitors she’ll probably be invited back…
The licence fee payer shelled out a mere £2,500 to listen to Ed Miliband evaluate toilet flushes when he sat in for Jeremy Vine on Radio 2, the Register of Members’ Interests reveals. That means Miliband bagged £500 for two hours work a day, which, to be fair, is an enormous discount on Vine’s reputed £10,000-a-week for the radio show. Vine is therefore worth four Milibands*…
Iain Duncan Smith, who took over the show the following week, is yet to declare any payment. Was he free?
*Didn’t Ed Miliband used to say he wanted to ban MPs from taking second jobs?
Double-jobbing Ed Miliband’s peak hypocritical stint as a radio presenter is finally drawing to a close. For the big set-piece on today’s show he managed to secure the time of his own brother David, who joined listeners live from New York. As with many a media moment Ed has been involved in, it all went wrong fairly quickly. The line kept dropping and David had to resort to a phone rather than broadcast quality connection. Ed finally cut the interview short, declaring “I’ll see you very soon“. Christmas if you’re lucky…
Ed Miliband just attempted to sing death-metal on Radio 2, tutored by the lead singer of Napalm Death. You’re welcome. pic.twitter.com/1gnZgSMU9O
— Tim Johns (@timoncheese) 21 June 2017
The same Ed Miliband who preached that MPs shouldn’t take second jobs – “we’ve got to remove any suspicion that MPs are working not for their constituents’ interests but for someone else’s interests” – is today doing death metal impressions on national radio. Ed is still the MP for Doncaster North. Rather than represent his constituents Ed has spent another day as parliament’s answer to Alan Partridge…
In an alternative universe Prime Minister Ed Miliband is settling into his third year in office. Instead he’s talking to old ladies about their toilets on Radio 2. Oh Ed… where did it all go wrong?
Labour have boarded the outrage bus over the Tories doing a deal with the “bigots and terrorist-sympathisers” in the DUP. They have some nerve…
In 2010 Labour tried to do a deal with the DUP. Gordon Brown wrote a letter to the DUP leader trying to buy his support. The then Northern Ireland Secretary Shawn Woodward worked on an “economic package” to secure DUP support. This morning Alastair Campbell said a deal with the DUP could undermine the peace process. On May 7, 2010, Campbell sat in a meeting where a Labour-DUP deal was proposed. Glorious hypocrisy from Bad Al…
Ed Miliband last night blasted the Tory-DUP deal as a “coalition of chaos”. Yvette Cooper this morning says it is “troubling“. Owen Jones says: “If Labour had ever done a deal with the DUP I would have been out there protesting it”. According to the DUP’s Ian Paisley Jr, Miliband’s Labour also tried to do a deal with the DUP in 2015:
Don’t buy the rank hypocrisy of Labour’s faux outrage this morning…
UPDATE: Caroline Flint slaps down Yvette Cooper over her hypocrisy:
Dennis Skinner is under strong threat from Helen Harrison in Bolsover. Labour are not exactly throwing resources into saving the old dinosaur’s skin. Here is the Beast of Bolsover pictured campaigning alone…
Elsewhere in Doncaster Ed Miliband was pictured having breakfast alone in Greggs this morning.
Sad socialists….
Ed Miliband goes studs in on Theresa May:
“When PM says “nothing has changed” she is lying. If she lies about this what else?”
Before the general election when Ed Miliband proposed fixing energy prices the Mail was scathing, branding it a return to the bad old days of 70s socialism from “Red Ed”. Today the Mail welcomes Theresa May’s return to the bad old days of price controls from the Red Tories…
Hat-tip: Matt Zarb
During the 2015 general election campaign, Ed Miliband suffered from a major – and very understandable – public perception problem: everyone thought he was weak. To prove his balls, the Labour Party leader claimed to have stopped a war. He told Jeremy Paxman in a leader’s debate:
“This government proposed action in Syria. The bombing of Syria, right? I was called into a room by David Cameron and Nick Clegg, because president Obama had been on the phone – the leader of the free world, right? I listened to what they said, and over those days I made up my mind, and we said no, right? I think standing up to the leader of the free world shows a certain toughness I would say.”
This was Ed Miliband’s ‘I’m-tough-enough’ pitch: ‘I’m tough because I opposed military action in Syria…’
Ed Miliband did successfully sabotage British government intervention in Syria – however the way he went about it was anything but tough or principled. On Thursday August 29, 2013, Miliband derailed David Cameron’s plan for UK airstrikes on Assad targets by majority of 13 votes. During an eight hour debate, the former Prime Minister’s voice faltered and he looked moved to tears when describing horrific videos showing the victims of Assad’s chemical attacks writhing in agony. Tough-as-nails Milband said of the emotional Prime Minister: “I believe he has to make a better case than he did today”…
This was a betrayal and hypocrisy. When Miliband was first “called into a room” with David Cameron, he gave the Prime Minister his assurance that if he could appease Labour backbenchers then he would support military action. Over the week that followed Miliband prevaricated on that decision, asked for concession after concession, and – as was briefed to the Guardian – generally “buggered around” the government. Miliband led Downing Street on a merry dance during a time of crisis and uncertainty:
At the eleventh hour, when the level of backbench disquiet became clear during a shadow cabinet meeting, Miliband changed his mind. He shafted the Prime Minister by phone the night before the crucial vote. As was pointed out at the time: “His overriding concern was the internal politics of the Labour Party”…
On Friday Ed Miliband appeared on Channel 4’s The Last Leg. He danced in a stupid skit to A-ha’s classic Take On Me. Miliband said on the show:
“The horrible scenes, ghastly scenes… obviously make me think about it [whether blocking military action was the right decision], I have thought a lot about it and whether it was the right thing to do but I think in the end, in my heart of hearts I do feel it was.”
Ed Miliband still uses his Syria sabotage to claim he’s tough. As he was during that crucial week in 2013, Miliband is still dancing whilst Syria burns…
Ed Miliband has secured an adjournment debate tonight on HS2 where he will argue against the line going through his Doncaster constituency. Miliband has been on quite a journey – he used to say he “absolutely” supported the project before u-turning because it will “disrupt” his constituents. Will it disrupt relations with the wife too? Ed’s other half Justine Thornton QC has for the last few months been working as counsel for the Department for Transport, defending HS2 as it faced public opposition at Lords committee stage. MPs needing lines to take before Ed’s debate tonight can read Justine’s evidence on behalf of DfT and HS2 here. Mr Miliband attacking HS2 in the Commons, Mrs Miliband defending it in the Lords…
Is he tough enough to fight off the flu?
Proud of new role in international health promotion. When America sneezes….#flulabour
— Ed Miliband (@Ed_Miliband) December 19, 2016
UPDATE:
Last year the Tories condemned Miliband’s energy price freeze as “Marxist”, now it looks like they’re adopting the policy. Ed has got a point…[…] Read the rest
Speaking at the Salzburg Summit on the Brexit negotiations, Juncker revealed:
“No decision will be taken here. Whenever the Commission is too flexible things are going wrong.”
